Restaurant owners will say, when asked, that they don’t hire illegal immigrants. They also say they don’t know of anyone on their staff who is illegal. They are very likely telling the truth. Employers aren’t allowed to ask about a prospective employee’s country of origin—that would be discriminatory. They are simply required to keep copies of a new hire’s identification on file with an I-9 form, a dizzyingly bureaucratic document that generally does nothing but collect dust. A new employee can offer up many types of documents for the I-9, some of them archaic. Simple mistakes are made. The lunch rush may be starting. And document forgery is big business. (Emphasis added.)

The other piece is a Forbesop-ed with the ironic assertion that giving amnesty to the undocumented is insufficient and that our government also owes them an apology. All this ironic behavior foreshadowed a bombshell of irony, a veritable immigration drone dropped on all American employers and newly hired employees, the release on March 8 of a new Form I-9 (Employment-Verification-Eligibility) by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The agency projects that the new I-9 -- consisting of seven pages of instructions to complete two pages of the form itself (up from the current one-page form) -- will impose an annual compliance burden of $1.2 billion on businesses and workers, not to mention a yearly cost to the federal government of $11.5 million. Why now? With the government straitened by sequester and the prospect for CIR never better, why did USCIS choose last week to drop the I-9 bombshell on business and labor? CIR could well involve the mandatory nationwide rollout of E-Verify and the elimination of the redundant I-9 verification process. Just as faith leaders, with CIR imminent, are calling for a nationwide moratorium on deportations, the business community and immigration advocates for the undocumented should protest the introduction of a costly new procedure that will only cause the "silent raids" and game of gotcha to continue and may well prove unnecessary. Notwithstanding the government's unpersuasive reasons for changing Form I-9, noted below, the timing, charitably speaking, is ironic.Why did the form change? The government has indicated (see #55 of the Appendix to Form I-9, Supporting Statement, available here) that the form was changed because: - The old form “expired.” - The expiration gave USCIS an opportunity to implement improvements to the form. - Improvements (according to USCIS) include: - Adding “helpful” fields such as the employee e-mail address and telephone number - Revising Section 1 to make it “easier to read and understand” - Adding an area for a 3D barcode to “promote the modernization of USCIS forms” - Giving employers more space - Making the instructions clearer and easier to understand Whether this was truly the most opportune time to make changes to the form is highly questionable. Given that any CIR bill passing this year is likely to include changes to the rules employers must follow when verifying employment eligibility, it is inexplicable for USCIS to have revised the I-9 now. Changes to employment verification in all versions of CIR would inevitably result in the need for a new form or no form at all (just E-Verify with a fraud-proof employee ID card that all workers, including citizens, must present): so why not simply re-publish the same form with a new expiration date? USCIS doesn't say.Did USCIS adequately respond to public comments? Digging around at www.regulations.gov (type in Docket ID USCIS-2006-0068 to find all of the documents and comments related to the new form) leads to a 30+ page document in which the government responds to public comments. While this suggests that USCIS actually read the comments, the agency's response confirms that little serious consideration was given to the many comments proposing meaningful improvements to the form. The majority of suggestions that USCIS implemented are minor and mostly stylistic, but still important and burdensome to implement. (See, e.g., the comments of ABIL, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, which like those of so many others the agency largely ignored.) What changed? The new I-9 form is so much more complex that the government anticipates a 21-minute increase in the amount of time it will take to complete. See pages 8-9 of this document. As noted, the form is now two pages long, with seven pages of instructions. The List of Acceptable Documents still occupies a single page. Aside from formatting and stylistic changes, there are also substantive changes:

The instructions are significantly more detailed, including a number of “clarifying” items to help employers avoid mistakes.

Instructions indicating that border commuters from Canada and Mexico may use foreign addresses in Section 1 (but that all other employees must use U.S. addresses).

Confirmation that P.O. Boxes are not acceptable.

A statement that the SSN (for employers who do not use E-Verify), e-mail, and telephone number fields, are optional.

In-depth instructions relating to the use of receipts for lost, stolen, and damaged documents.

More detailed instructions relating to deadlines for form completion, review and recordation of document information, reverification, and photocopying documents.

The form has been updated to look more “official” and to include the DHS seal; this, in combination with certain formatting changes, may help employees take the form more seriously, giving them a better understanding that this is an official government form that is being signed under penalty of perjury.

New fields have been added for employees to record telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. These fields are optional. The government has indicated that many commenters praised the addition of these fields and that they may make it easier to contact employees in the event of E-Verify tentative nonconfirmations.

Terminology has changed in an attempt to make the form more user-friendly, reflect a better understanding of cultural norms (“Family Name”), and to make fields more gender-neutral (“Other Names Used” instead of Maiden Name).

Fields have been added for certain foreign nationals to provide passport information in Section 1 of the form. This relates to CBP’s plans for automation of the I-94 card. Only those foreign nationals who obtained their I-94 documents upon entry to the U.S. (as opposed to having received a tear-off I-94 card as a part of a USCIS approval notice) should provide this data. Others are instructed to write “N/A” in these fields.

The signature box for the employee has been improved to prevent employees from signing outside of the box.

In most cases, the instructions indicate that fields that do not apply to an employee (or where employees choose not to provide optional information) should be marked “N/A.” While the government may find such instructions helpful, they actually create more opportunities for employers to find themselves making “mistakes” and worrying about possible fines for noncompliance with seemingly arbitrary rules.

“Alien #” has been changed to “Alien Registration Number/USCIS Number.” For many, this causes confusion. Let us make it clear: the numbers are the same, but some government-issued documents use different terms to refer to the same number.

A 3D barcode box has been added to the form. This is a mysterious box, as it is unclear what the government plans to do with it. All indications suggest that the government may create a “smart” I-9 that employers can complete electronically, and that the barcode may allow for electronic reading of the form data.

A stop sign (yes, like the traffic sign) has been added between Section 1 and Section 2 to help prevent employees from completing Section 2 of the form.

Additional dedicated fields for recording “extra” List A documents have been added. These fields may prove helpful to employers who previously struggled with the correct ways to document work authorization for foreign students, certain aliens authorized to work, and lawful permanent residents who have not yet received their green cards. They may cause confusion, however, for others. It is still not clear which document should be recorded first, second, or third.

The employer’s attestation statement has been changed somewhat. It makes clearer to employers that they are not necessarily attesting to the employee’s start date (which is helpful when an employee is scheduled to start work in the future, preventing employers from concerns about attesting to something that has not yet occurred).

Section 3 has been changed to “Section 3, Reverification and Rehires” to make clear that there is no requirement that employers update the form for employee name changes. Recording name changes may continue to be a best practice, but only if handled in such a way as to prevent document abuse claims (requesting documentation for I-9 purposes in connection with a name change may be risky).

The Lists of Acceptable Documents have been updated to make the rules regarding “restricted” Social Security cards clearer, specifically stating that employers must not accept cards that say “not valid for employment,” “valid for work only with INS authorization,” or “valid for work only with DHS authorization.”

What should employers do? USCIS has indicated that employers should begin using the new form immediately but has allowed a period of 60 days for employers to make the business-related adjustments necessary to begin use of the new form, effectively providing a grace period. With that somewhat clunky guidance, we suggest that employers do the following: Consider waiting to use the new form until you take time to:

Read and digest the revised M-274 Handbook for Employers, available here.

Update your company policies and protocols to reflect changes to the form.

Provide training (preferably from a competent immigration attorney) to the individuals responsible for completing the form to ensure that they are aware of the changes and are equipped to properly implement them.

Anticipate questions and issues that may arise.

Be ready to fix the foreseeable mistakes that are likely to arise.

Check with your electronic I-9 software provider (assuming you no longer use paper I-9s) to see that the new form is available, and ask your immigration attorney to review the new form in a test environment to ensure that it complies with all of the relevant rules and regulations.

* * *

Sen. John McCain, whose somersaults on immigration are just as nimble and ironic as those of Jeb Bush, chastised Sen. Paul's filibuster, calling it a "political stunt" meant to "fire up impressionable libertarian kids in their college dorms." No one, however, can really say what USCIS, in its bureaucratic wisdom, meant to accomplish in dropping the new I-9, an even more dizzying and ditzy document than the current form. Perhaps, Sen. McCain will persuade his "Gang of Eight" compadres to rescue U.S. employers with an immigration amnesty on I-9 paperwork violations. Meantime, unimpressionable, all too jaundiced employers and their immigration lawyers, stoked by the new I-9, will muddle through the IRCA squeeze until Congress drops the irony and acts responsibly on CIR.